Florida has billionaires galore

The 2016 Forbes list of billionaires included a number of people who maintain a residence in the Sunshine State.

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel

There's more than 7 billion people in the world, but only 1,645 billionaires. Of that total, there's 37 who call Florida home.

For those keeping score at home those 37 people are roughly one half of one percent of one percent of one percent of one percent of everyone. That's all according to the annual list produced by Forbes that attempts to account for all of the world's billionaires.

This year's list gathered data from men and women from 69 countries and territories. So that leaves about 120 countries that are billionaireless. Insert sad face here.

Of the global total, 492 were from the U.S. Florida's 37 put it as the fourth highest total in the union behind California's 111, New York's 88 and Texas' 51. Trailing far behind the Sunshine State was Illinois with only 19.

That's right. Twice as much sunshine and twice as many billionaires.

Now No. 1 in the U.S. (and the world for that matter) was Mr. MicrosoftBill Gates, who reclaimed the top spot with a net value of $76 billion. Gates had been No. 1 for 15 of the past 20 years, but had given up the title for the last four years to Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu, who this year came in at No. 2.

So who's tops in Florida? That would be Carnival Corp. CEO Micky Arison who makes his home in Bal Harbor. He's worth $6.5 billion. That places him 208th in the world and 69th in the U.S.

Coming in behind Arison is Dirk Ziff of North Palm Beach, whose family made its fortune with Ziff Davis Media. Ziff is worth $4.8 billion.

Shahird Khan of Naples is worth $4.1 billion. He owns Flex-N-Gate, but also the Jacksonville Jaguars and English Premier League team Fulham F.C.

The rest of Florida's list includes a mix of people you've heard of and those you haven't.

There's a few former NFL team owners: Edward DeBartolo Jr. (49ers), H. Wayne Huizenga (Dolphins) and Norman Braman (Eagles). There's a chewing gum magnate you may recognize: William Wrigley Jr. II. (Yes...he's the second Jr. That's not a typo.)

There's folks you haven't heard of, but you've probably heard of their products.

There's the man who created Slim-Fast and the man who founded Marvel Comics.

There's the CEO of Sears Holding, the CEO of Best Buy and the director of Campbell Soup.

There's even a couple of well-to-do cofounders: Netscape and Subway.

There's also of slew of people who financed this and restructured that, did some buying and selling and property owning. That sort of thing.